[R-SIG-Mac] RGtk, rattle, and GTK+ on Snow Leopard and Lion

David Winsemius dwinsemius at comcast.net
Thu Oct 6 19:59:21 CEST 2011 

On Oct 5, 2011, at 3:38 PM, Simon Urbanek wrote:

>
> On Oct 5, 2011, at 3:19 PM, Robert Chatfield wrote:
>
>> Do I understand the implications of previous messages about
>> rattle correctlly?
>>
>> => Do I also need to use homebrew and to a full R install as is  
>> implied for Lion?
>>
>
> Just to clarify some misinformation in that thread so far:
>
> The issue has nothing to do with the OS X version, you can happily  
> use RGtk2 and other GTK-based packages with the CRAN setup,  
> regardless is you're on Lion, SL, or Leopard. The problem is that  
> recent rattle requires higher GTK version that what's available, so  
> you're on your own.

My understanding is that the higher GTK+ requirement problem has been  
fixed in the current version of rattle with a modification to  
rattle.ui that now specifies greater than GTK+2.16. This requirement  
is satisfied by the binary package installer for GTK+2.18 being  
distributed at   :

http://r.research.att.com/

My thanks again to you, Simon, for creating that 2.18 version of GTK+.  
It has solved several problems for me.


>
> Also note that Erich's description was about *native* GTK which is  
> somewhat experimental (use at your own risk!), it is not about the  
> X11 GTK we use in R distribution.
>
> The reference to Homebrew was quite irrelevant for the reasons you  
> noted.
>
> We may consider updating the GTK binary for R 2.14.0, but it's  
> certainly not high on the priority list.
>
> Cheers,
> Simon
>
>
>
>> Bob  C
>>
>> This is what I've read
>> R-SIG-Mac Digest, Vol 89, Issue 7   1.  Error messages when  
>> starting Rattle (Richard R. Liu)
>>> (R:1683): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to find default local directory  
>>> monitor type

This doesn't appear to be the same problem as was being described  
originally. That was an error and a failure to even start the rattle  
package.  This problem could plausibly be explained by Simon's "tiny,  
technical side-comment". I have not experienced it when the new  
patched version of rattle is started from the Mac RGUI, however.

-- 
David

>> =>  I get the same message: (R:1683): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to  
>> find default local directory monitor type
>>
>> => I have been able to get Rattle to start, but it will do very  
>> little; does not respond to most buttons.
>>
>> => 6-core Xeon 2.66 GHz   OS X 10.6.8   R.2.13.2  rattlev 2.6.10
>>
>>> I get
>>>> library(rattle)
>>> Rattle: A free graphical interface for data mining with R.
>>> Version 2.6.10 Copyright (c) 2006-2011 Togaware Pty Ltd.
>>> Type 'rattle()' to shake, rattle, and roll your data.
>>>> rattle(csvname="organics.csv")
>>> Error in rattle(csvname = "organics.csv") : attempt to apply non- 
>>> function
>>> In addition: Warning message:
>>> In method(obj, ...) :
>>> /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.13/Resources/library/ 
>>> rattle/etc/rattle.ui: required gtk+ version 2.20, current version  
>>> is 2.18
>>> Rattle timestamp (for the message above): 2011-10-05 12:15:51
>>> ^ 
>>> ^ 
>>> ^ 
>>> ^ 
>>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>>> rattle()
>>> Error in rattle() : attempt to apply non-function
>>> In addition: Warning message:
>>> In method(obj, ...) :
>>> /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.13/Resources/library/ 
>>> rattle/etc/rattle.ui: required gtk+ version 2.20, current version  
>>> is 2.18
>>> Rattle timestamp (for the message above): 2011-10-05 12:16:07
>>> ^ 
>>> ^ 
>>> ^ 
>>> ^ 
>>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>
>> R-SIG-Mac Digest, Vol 97, Issue 11   3. Re:  R editor for Mac  
>> (Simon Urbanek)
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Just a tiny, technical side-comment:  it uses a separate process  
>>>>> for R which has serious technical implications (you can't use  
>>>>> any GUIs, external UI libraries, or even native devices like  
>>>>> Quartz for example - it leads to crashes).
>>>>
>>>> Can you expand on that, Simon? Crashes when using Quartz would  
>>>> seem like an immediate deal-breaker for Mac OS X users. Does that  
>>>> mean that ordinary plotting calls would cause crashes?
>>>>
>>>
>>> They don't use Quartz - they have their own re-implementation of  
>>> Cairo which creates files which is what gets displayed in the GUI  
>>> - the GUI doesn't actually use the R device directly. It's  
>>> entirely different from what you get in regular R. Unfortunately  
>>> it means you can't use Quartz which is already a deal-breaker for  
>>> me.
>>>
>>>
>>>> I was assuming that users of RStudio would not be also using  
>>>> other GUI's, but I do not know whether I am using "external UI  
>>>> libraries" in my typical R activities using rms/Hmisc/survival.  
>>>> Is this in reference to packages such as rgl that invoke  
>>>> libraries such as GTK? Are Rattle or rggobi precluded as packages?
>>>>
>>>
>>> In principle, yes (but I'd think that if you use Rattle it's  
>>> pointless to have another GUI ;)). The actual interaction depends  
>>> on the details inside their rsession part - so I can't comment on  
>>> that and I didn't test the packages you mention. The bottom line  
>>> is that all packages are run outside the GUI in an R embedding.
>>>
>>> If I get a spare minute, I'm actually tempted to hack RStudio to  
>>> remedy this design problem, because it would allow for example  
>>> iPlots eXtreme to be used directly in the GUI which the current  
>>> setup doesn't allow.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Simon
>>
>> R-SIG-Mac Digest, Vol 103, Issue 24
>> 5. Re:  RGtk, rattle, and GTK+ on Lion (Charlie Sharpsteen)
>>> ...
>>> Message: 5
>>> Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:17:40 -0700
>>> From: Charlie Sharpsteen <charles.sharpsteen at gmail.com>
>>> To: <r-sig-mac at googlegroups.com>
>>> Cc: r-sig-mac at stat.math.ethz.ch
>>> Subject: Re: [R-SIG-Mac] RGtk, rattle, and GTK+ on Lion
>>> Message-ID:
>>> 	<12675195.1573.1317010660824.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums at prhv38>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>
>>> On Sunday, September 25, 2011 6:12:08 AM UTC-7, Erich Neuwirth  
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>> ....  omitted quote
>>> A package manager could help with this.
>>>
>>> For example, install Homebrew:
>>>
>>> http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew
>>>
>>> Install GFortran and R:
>>>
>>> brew install gfortran
>>> brew install R
>>>
>>> You might be able to skip this step and use the R binaries from  
>>> CRAN---the
>>> only caveat I can think of is that Homebrew doesn't build a  
>>> Universal GTK+
>>> (it gives you x86_64) and CRAN R might want to build both i386 and  
>>> x86_64
>>> versions of packages.
>>>
>>> Install GTK+:
>>>
>>> brew install gtk+
>>>
>>> Run R and install rattle:
>>>
>>> install.packages('rattle')
>>>
>>> Hope this helps!
>>>
>>> -Charlie
>>
>> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
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>
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David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT

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